


SCP-6881

by peyj_turner



Category: SCP Foundation, Wayside School - Louis Sachar
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-07-17
Packaged: 2018-02-09 05:21:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1970505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peyj_turner/pseuds/peyj_turner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Secure. Contain. Protect. The SCP Foundation stands for these three principles in order to protect the human race from unspeakable horrors. This...is not one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	SCP-6881

**Item #:** SCP-6881

**Object Class:** Safe

**Special Containment Procedures:** As SCP-6881 seems to be drawn towards a specific location and, after several experiments conducted by Dr. Long, relatively safe, no special procedures are necessary to contain the object in question. However, a member of the staff in  ███ Branch Library has been given special clearance by the organization to observe SCP-6881 on-site and to contact with Dr. Long should the object exhibit any sort of abnormal behavior. Due to the nature of the object’s ability to seemingly bend reality, no other personnel may attempt to remove the object from the premises.

**Description:** SCP-6881 is a hardback copy of the 1985 reprint of Louis Sachar’s  _Sideways Stories from Wayside School_ , originally published in 1978. It is part of the children's fiction collection in the ██████ Branch Library of the ███ ███ ███ Library system in ██████, ██. According to the stamps and other identifying marks found in and around the object, it was first added to the collection in 1995, with Item Barcode number ████████. It resembles a well-worn library book, complete with yellowing pages, bite marks, and various scars that would feasible appear on an old public library book. Its physical properties are indistinguishable from any other copy of the same book, save for its unique barcode and marks. Various tests have not revealed any sign of cognition, nor any sort of self-awareness. For all other intents and purposes, it is inert.

However, the circumstances surrounding its discovery by the Organization, and the various tests that have it has undergone, have led Dr. Long and several other professors to believe that it has the innate ability to bend the laws of space, time and probability in order to return to its home library, located in █████ Branch, ██ ██████ ██, █████, ██ ████. It was brought to the attention of the SCP Foundation after a staff member of the library found out the circumstances surrounding the book, and conducted their own set of experiments. It seems that the book manages to find itself being returned to its home library, despite being sold to a patron, being sent to a different country, being incinerated, and split in half and sent to two different sites on two different countries. The initial discovery of the book and the subsequent experiments (conducted by the staff member and SCP personnel) conducted on the book are listed under **Addendum-6881-a: Incident 6881-a**  and **Addendum-6881-b: Incident 6881-b** , respectively. Because the object's "homing" mechanism, containment attempts have been unsuccessful, with the object disappearing from observation and re-appearing in the library's collection. The only times the object has been successfully removed from the premises is when it is borrowed like an ordinary library book by any patron.      

**Addendum-6881-a: Incident 6881-a:** The following is an excerpt  of a [GoodReads review](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/996594414) created by the staff member who initially discovered the book and the circumstances surrounding the object.

> "I handed the book over to my supervisor, who handed it over to the ladies of the Circulation desk to file away for tomorrow. They checked it too, and they got the same message [of "Item not Found in Catalog"]. We'll add it back to the collection tomorrow, they said. Sometimes, when a book's discarded because it's too old or too shelfworn to be circulated, it's sold off by the library, they said. Sometimes, and this does happen, they forget that it's a book that was sold to them, and return it to the library! Isn't that funny, they said. Yeah, it's pretty funny. The library was closing for the night, and when I walked past front desk to retrieve my belongings from the back offices, I stared at the book. Miss Gorf's cheeky smirk was more menacing to me now than it had ever been in my twenty-something years of being a reader.  
>   
> It was then I knew.
> 
> It didn't want to be sold.  
>  It didn't want to be forgotten.
> 
> It wanted to be found..."

It was this initial discovery that lead to the aforementioned staff member's experiments. They were then contacted by the SCP Foundation to further investigate the object's abilities.

**Addendum-6881-b: Incident 6881-b:** Several experiments were conducted to test the homing ability of the object.

  * > **EXP-1: Observation** : SCP-6881 was isolated and observed in Site █ for a period of over thirty-four continuous hours before an static anomaly depowered the observational equipment for several seconds. During that time, the object disappeared from the premises, and was found in the collection ██ days later, dropped off by a patron in another branch. When later interviewed by the Foundation's Agent ████ and Dr. Long, the patron said they found it on their bookshelf and decided to return it after reading it. Records indicate that the object was checked-out and returned around the time it disappeared from Site █.

  * > **EXP-2:** **Deportation** : SCP-6881 was sent from its home library to several SCP sites: Site █ in Czechoslovakia, Site █ in the Sahara Desert, Deep Sea Site █ in the ██████, Lunar Site ██ and ████ located on the base of ████. In each instance, similar events to EXP-1 have happened, each time having a different concerned patron returning the book, even so far as having one patron recovering the object from a book sale from one country, and returning it to its home library out of a sense of "pity."

  * > **EXP-3:** **Incineration** : SCP-6881 was sent to Site █ to be incinerated under the orders of O5-██, and to have Dr. Long observe the process. At 17:30, ██ / ██ / 20██, the object was seemingly burned into cinders, and video records indicate that no part of the book survived the process. However, upon the returning to the object's home library, a child patron was seen reading the same copy of the book. Reports indicate the object suffered no cosmetic damage, but a note left by Agent ██ suggested that the object "smelled a little like gasoline," similar to the fuel used in the incinerator.

  * > **EXP-4:** **Bisection** : Dr. Long decided to try a different type of experiment to test the object's abilities. Using her own hands, she tore the book in half and sent the two parts of the book to Sites █ and Site █, both located equidistant to the object's home library. A series of events, similar to EXP-1, happened at both sites simultaneously (see Video Logs ████:███ and ████:███ for times and occurrences), and the SCP-6881 was found in one piece, sent to ███ Branch in small manila envelope without a return address or any proof of human contact in or on the envelope.

  * > **EXP-5:** **Vaporization** : Dr. Long has concluded that the object has the ability to bend reality in order to be returned to its home library, but decided to test her own hypothesis one last time using [SCP-676](http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-676), with permission from O5-█. The object was promptly dissolved and disappeared from sight. The staff member in ████ Branch library reported that the book was returned by a regular patron three days later, having borrowed earlier that week, a significant impossibility considering it was around that time that the object was taken to the site the holds [SCP-676](http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-676) in that same time period. Both the Foundation and the ███ ███ ███ Library show records that both EXP-5 was successful and the patron did check-out the book around the same time. Interrogation of the patron was deemed unsuccessful.




_It's like a damned carrier pigeon! - Dr. Long_

**Author's Note:**

> This SCP Article is a work of fiction, although the GoodReads review actually did happen to me, the weirdness of which is the inspiration for this work. Dedicated to tumblr-user outoftimetraveler for instigating this work into existence.


End file.
